You bring me closer to God

First off, Day 3 of the NYC is coming, hold on a day or so more. My final papers are due in my classes, so this week has been busy. I was just reading this article and I think it speaks for itself..

Study fails to show healing power of prayer
By Michael Conlon

Fri Mar 31, 9:49 AM ET

A study of more than 1,800 patients who underwent heart bypass surgery has failed to show that prayers specially organized for their recovery had any impact, researchers said Thursday.
In fact, the study found some of the patients who knew they were being prayed for did worse than others who were only told they might be prayed for -- though those who did the study said they could not explain why.

The patients in the study at six U.S. hospitals included 604 who were actually prayed for after being told they might or might not be; another 597 patients who were not prayed for after being told they might or might not be; and a group of 601 who were prayed for and told they would be the subject of such prayer.

The praying was done by members of three Christian groups in monasteries and elsewhere -- two Catholic and one Protestant -- who were given written prayers and the first name and initial of the last name of the prayer subjects. The prayers started on the eve of or day of surgery and lasted for two weeks.

Among the first group -- who were prayed for but only told they might be -- 52 percent had post-surgical complications compared to 51 percent in the second group, the ones who were not prayed for though told they might be. In the third group, who knew they were being prayed for, 59 percent had complications.

After 30 days, however, the death rates and incidence of major complications was about the same across all three groups, said the study published in the American Heart Journal.

COMPLICATIONS AFTER SURGERY

"Intercessory prayer itself had no effect on whether complications occurred (and) patients who were certain that intercessors would pray for them had a higher rate of complications than patients who were uncertain but did receive intercessory prayer," the study said.

There is "no clear explanation" for the latter finding, it added.

The study -- called the largest of its kind -- was designed only to try to measure the impact of intercessory prayer on heart surgery patients, an intervention that some earlier reports had showed seemed to be beneficial.

"Our study was never intended to address the existence of God or the presence or absence of intelligent design in the universe" or to compare the efficacy of one prayer form over another, said the Rev. Dean Marek, director of chaplain services at the Mayo Clinic, one of the authors.

The patients in the study had similar religious profiles with most believing in spiritual healing and almost all also thinking that friends or relatives would be praying for them as well, he said.

"One caveat is that with so many individuals receiving prayer from friends and family, as well as personal prayer, it may be impossible to disentangle the effects of study prayer from background prayer," Manoj Jain of Baptist Memorial Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, another author of the report.

The authors said one possible limitation to their study was that those doing the special praying had no connection or acquaintance with the subjects of their prayer, which would not usually be the norm.

"Private or family prayer is widely believed to influence recovery from illness, and the results of this study do not challenge this belief," the report concluded.

Oh my starry eyed surprise, sundown to sunrise

Waking up at 10am, I hear Brian tell me, “Oh, I forgot to give you a pillow.” That hardly stirred me as I took the pillow and fell back into a good sleep. When I finally awoke from my alcohol-induced slumber at noon, I got up and tapped on Brian’s door to see if he was up, which he was. We reminisced about the things we could recall, filling each other in on events we had forgotten, even though they had only occurred in the previous 12 hours. Also, at some point in the middle of the night, although I have no idea when, I got up, went to my bag and without throwing everything out of it, pulled my pajamas out and changed into them. My jeans and sneakers were lying on the couch and apparently, I had the presence of mind to not sleep in them the whole night. The things we do when we’re drunk!

We had originally planned to do so many things on Friday. He was going to show me where his office is; ground zero; take the ferry out to see the Statue of Liberty, maybe see Central Park, since it was such a nice day out, 75 degrees the first week of March. However, our late start to the day pretty much cancelled all of that out. Or, was it the fact that we had the hangover blahs? We didn’t have the “sick” type of hangovers, where we’re throwing up all day, with headaches and what not. We just didn’t feel “right”. Eventually, we pulled ourselves together, showered and went for some food at the Neptune Diner.

Once we finished breakfast/lunch around 3 pm, we headed back over to his apartment to drop a couple things off and then head into the city. Our plan now was to go get the key to E’s apartment to grab some blankets for Dave’s arrival later that night. We got a little sidetracked however, when we sat down on the couch and started watching the ACC tournament.

While we watched the games, we had a great conversation about God/religion/atheism/the existence of prophets and many of the things that I’ve been dealing with either here or over here. This is a typical conversation when Brian and I get together, although there is usually more alcohol involved at the time. Needless to say, at 515, we needed to get going!

We walked to the subway and called Dave to tell him to get on his horse and get down here already! We took the train in and walked to meet E at her office building, which is right up the street from Radio City Music Hall. After she met us outside, we took the subway back to her apartment, picked up the blankets, convinced her to meet us for dinner and headed off to get Dave from Grand Central Station.

We arrived minutes before Dave did and were waiting for him when he exited the train. He was a little groggy from working all day and then taking a nap on the ride in, but we knew that would soon change!

We headed back to Brian’s apartment to drop off everything, Dave’s bags and the blankets and headed right back out to meet E and J.K. for dinner.

Dinner was really good, but uneventful, except for when Dave told the waitress that the last slice of Pizza was going to be her tip!

After dinner, E was departing us so that we could have a guys night out. Nap was supposed to meet us at some point, so we were awaiting his call, but in the meantime, we went to 2nd Avenue and walked a ways to find a bar. The first place we went was cool, but emptied out quickly after we arrived. We left there and headed to a bar where we hoped a friend was working, The Joshua Tree.

After carefully navigating the crowd of obnoxiously drunk guys and decent-looking, but drunk girls, we found our buddy and hung out there. Brian and I headed to the bar for beers and attempted the journey back through the crowd without spilling any on either us or someone else. No sooner than 5 steps away from bar did someone bump Brian and he spilled a fair amount down the shoulder and arm of this girl who must have either been really hot (temperature wise) or just so damned drunk that she didn’t notice! I know she had a lot on her because when I tried to slide by, my arm rubbed against where he spilled the beer and she was soaked. She didn’t even flinch and I wasn’t about to say anything, so I kept on walking. We arrived back with Dave, but J.K. had headed home because he had a long ride back and we had early plans for Saturday morning of which he was an integral, sober part (more on that later).

We tried coaxing Dave into talking to some girls, hoping he would at least get a couple numbers, but he wouldn’t. There was this one pretty hot girl in a black dress and I told him I would buy his drinks the rest of the night if he would just go talk to her, but he was having none of it. Eventually, our friend got the cute waitress (a different cute waitress than the previous night) to come over and introduced her to Dave. They didn’t say much, but it was a start at least.

After finishing our beers, we were soaked with sweat and some beer that splashed on us as well, and wanted to head out, so we started heading towards the door, when Dave decides he wants to start talking to the waitress! Brian was already halfway across the bar and I was standing there like an idiot waiting for Dave, so I started heading for the door as well. Brian and I waited for a few minutes and eventually Dave saunters out, sans phone number though.

I had mentioned to Brian earlier in the day that I’d never been to Times Square, so what better time to go there than on a Friday night at 100 am? So we started walking in that direction when Nap finally calls! He had fallen asleep and wasn’t going to come out, since it was so late. We gave him plenty of shit for that, but we were pleased with how the night was headed so far, so there was no need to add mayhem to it. Little did we know…

We arrived at Times Square around 130 am, snapped some pictures (pay no attention to the time on the pics since my camera was still in Central time) and decided we were hungry. Lets find some food! We tried locating a Gray’s Papaya, but we didn’t know where one was close by, so we thought we’d head back towards Brian’s apartment and get something closer to there.

While on the subway, we decided that Dave needed to experience Café Bar, so we exited and walked over there around 215 am. Once we arrived, we decided to call Nap. Remember, he only lives a few blocks away, he needed to get up and come visit because we found our favorite waitress working, or at least our favorite from last night, Tanya. She remembered us and even asked where our friend was. She wanted him, it was obvious. I was able to coax Nap into coming with the fabulous line of, “How often am I in NYC? Get your ass over here!” Or something very close to that. About 10 minutes later, Dave and Brian both got text messages that he was on his way! Dave, Brian and I grabbed the cards and poker chips and proceeded to start playing some Texas Hold ‘Em, albeit not very well! Nap arrived, much to Tanya’s delight and the night has now begun.

We dealt him in, drank some beers, had lively conversation, of course, Nap flirted with Tanya and we actually kept it pretty tame – drink-wise, compared to the night before, although you might not know it by this picture! We all agreed that we really liked this bar and that we were much more comfortable here than at Joshua Tree, plus have I mentioned the great music they play? That is, until Dave requested Enigma – just kidding Dave!

At 415 am, you’re thinking this night has got to be over right? Not so fast!

Since we were still hungry, we wanted to find an all night diner to get some food. Following Nap’s poor advice, we wandered from street to street looking, but none of the diner’s he was thinking of were still open, so we headed back towards Neptune Diner, for Brian and I, the second time in 15 hours!

During the walk over there, we passed a house that had this on their porch. Who keeps these things on their porch? We had to sneak into the gated area to get that picture, but it was so worth it!

We finally arrived at Neptune Diner and Brian and Nap got the best seats in house as we were right by the door and they got to watch all the cute, drunk, skimpy-dressed girls come in and leave. (E – Brian was only looking for Dave, not for himself, don’t be mad at him! They don’t hold a candle to you anyway ;)) Dave got a good rear-view, but not much else.

We ate heartily, especially for 515 am, except for Nap, since he spent most of the night asleep. We paid up and headed out, with the dawn beginning to break. We arrived back at Brian’s apartment in a few minutes and said our goodbyes to Nap because he wouldn’t be joining us for Day 3’s festivities. Dave wanted to see the roof, so I took him up there and as I reached for my pocket to take a picture, I realized I left my camera in the Diner – OH NO!

Dave and I got the key to the apartment from Brian and raced back over there. They had my camera stored for me. I thanked them and we returned to the apartment building. Upon trying to enter, Dave was having some problems figuring out which key to use. After trying them all and having one almost get stuck on him, I took a turn. After a couple minutes of me toiling with the lock, Dave looked at the door and realized we were at the wrong entrance! We seem to have a lot of that problem, but this time we were pretty sober! After getting inside the first door, I started trying the keys on the inside door and although one of them fit, it wouldn’t turn. After a minute of fooling with it, I remembered that this door wasn’t locked – D’OH!

Dave and I headed back up to the roof to take some pictures, because it was now 545 am and since we were up…

Finally at a few minutes after 6 am, we all settled in for a few hours of sleep to prepare for Day 3.

Day 2 – the fun has just begun!

NYC
Friends

Just a little patience, yeaaaahhhh.

I know everyone is waiting for days 2 & 3 from NYC, because they were good stories, but I was crazy busy at work last week and my rough draft for my paper was due tonight, so the only writing I've been doing is for that. I'm finished now and Monday is a light day at work, so check back Monday afternoon sometime and at the very least, day 2 should be up and ready for your reading discomfort.

I get by with a little help from my friends

Ok, ok. I know I’ve been back for 2 full days, I haven’t posted anything about my trip and you’re all anxiously awaiting the details, right? Well, that’s a silly question really, because I know that you are! I’m going to split these posts up into each day because so much happened I couldn’t write it all at once. So, here is day 1:

After sleeping for about 4 hours Wednesday night, I was dropped off at the airport at 730 am for my 830 flight to Charlotte, NC, where I would catch my connecting flight to Newark. Heaven forbid my flight would actually begin on time though. They overbooked the flight and asked for three volunteers for which they were giving the standard free round trip ticket to anywhere in the lower 48. Amazingly enough, only one person volunteered however. I have been tempted to do this on more than one occasion, but there was no way in hell I was going to do it this time because I needed to get the hell outta Houston ASAP! So after upping the ante and offering a free RT ticket AND a one-way ticket as well, they got their three and we departed 45 minutes behind schedule at 915. Needless to say, at this point, I’m a little worried that I wouldn’t make my connection because it was due to leave at 1240 and now I would be arriving around 1220. In addition, I’ve had a couple of run-ins at the Charlotte airport where I arrived at terminal C on time, but had to run as fast as I could clear across the airport to terminal A to board my connection within minutes of departing. Fortunately, when we arrived at gate C9, I had only 500 feet to walk in 20 minutes to gate C14 – I figured I had enough time to crawl, but I’d look like an idiot, so I didn’t.

My flight from Charlotte to Newark was hands-down, the best flight I’ve ever been on. We were in a 737, the type of plane that has 3 seats on each side of the aisle. I was originally seated in row 24, 3 rows from the back. The flight attendant came to let us know the flight was nowhere near full and we could move up if we’d like. Long story short, I had my own row – all six seats.

I arrived in Newark right on time and when I got through security, Brian was there to greet me which was a serious relief (this comes back to haunt me later on). As we left the gate, we stopped so I could put my fleece on for going outside. While standing there, Brian noted that I had packed light, since I only had my backpack with me. It then struck me that I had to get my bag! Could you imagine leaving the airport without your luggage? We collected my bag and looked for something quick to eat in the airport since I hadn’t eaten but a couple of the bags of airplane peanuts. $2.00 for a cheeseburger at BK later, we left to catch the Airtrain, which would then take us to the train into Penn Station.

Brian and I had a great conversation catching up on things on the train to Penn Station and then we caught the subway back to his apartment. He lives Astoria, Queens, in a great little place, which is relatively new, with a great view off the roof. It is also close to the subway stop, which was great since my bag was getting heavy. We were scheduled to leave a few minutes after arriving at his place because we were having dinner with his girlfriend whom I had yet to meet, but heard great things about. So, we boarded the subway again, minus all the luggage and headed back into Manhattan.

We got to the restaurant and sat down at the bar for a couple of drinks while we awaited the E’s (Brian’s girlfriend) arrival. I was ready for a beer, but Brian had a basketball game later, so he stuck to Coke. E arrived just as we were being called for our table and she is even cuter in person than in the pictures I’ve seen. There is little to tell about dinner, other than we had great drinks, food and conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know E and watching her and Brian interact. I can tell how much they care for one another. She told me the story of how they met, which she tells very well, because Brian’s version was short, to the point and I wanted to know what she thought of him and how this all came to be. I think we all had a great time at dinner and around 815, we parted ways with E for Brian’s game over at Chelsea Piers.

On the team is another friend who we would be spending most of the weekend with as well, J.K. I’m guessing there are only a few people who are interested in the details of the game, so, I’m skipping past it. They lost by 9, I’ll leave it at that.

It’s now about 1015 after the game and you’re reading this thinking, Josh, you’ve had a long day, this is probably where the night ended, right? Not so fast. This is where the night begins!

While we were waiting for a cab, our other friend, Nap, called. He wants us to meet him back in Astoria at the Café Bar, which is a few blocks from their respective apartments (Nap lives a couple blocks from Brian). We arrived around 1045, headed for the bar and asked what they had on tap. They have no beer on tap, only bottles. Ok, what do you have? The list goes on until we hear the sweet sound of our favorite beer, Duvel. If you don’t know about Duvel, the name means, “The Devil’s Brew”. It is a great Belgian beer and the alcohol content is around 9% (most beers are 4 - 4.5%), so drinking one is like drinking two regular beers (for those of you who couldn’t do the math). Brian and I have a serious history with Duvel, which I guess I’m going to have to explain at a later time. We begin to drink slowly, as is suggested clearly on the bottle, when Nap arrives. We say our hellos and he heads to the bar to order. He comes back over and waits for his drink to arrive. The waitress, who comes into play later, comes over with his bottle of, you guessed it, Duvel, and 3 shots of Tequila. We toast to a fantastic weekend with fantastic friends and do our shots. Stay with me, this is only the beginning.

Ok, so Café Bar is this great little place that played amazing music through a computer jukebox that had a lot of everything you’d want in a cozy little place like this. There are chairs and couches situated around coffee tables, bar tables, booths and stools at the bar as well. They have all sorts of games, checkers, backgammon, cards & poker chips, Boggle, Yahtzee, Monopoly and probably more that we didn’t see. It has minimal lighting and maximum atmosphere. It was the perfect bar to end a long day at with great friends. Oh, and our waitress, Tanya, was cute as a button.

As is expected, Brian, Nap and I had our typical amazing conversations ranging from politics to religion to sports to Naps’ ex-girlfriend, to love, sex and probably more that I cannot remember. I do remember that Nap and I played a game of backgammon and that we were there a long time and drinking a lot. How much is a lot, you ask? Before I answer this, I will let you know that I don’t drink very often, or very much, so for me, this night equals a lot. 4 bottles of Duvel, the aforementioned shot of Tequila and a shot of Jack Daniel’s that we basically finished the night off with around 130 am. Also, around 1230, we called Dave, who was joining us on Friday night, because we figured he needed to know what he was missing out on.

Before leaving, of course we settled up, but I’m not quite sure who paid or how much. However, Tanya slipped Brian her number to give to Nap. Even as drunk as we were, we could tell she was flirting with him most of the night and as I said, she was really cute.

Whew! What a day! Oh wait, it doesn’t end there!

We needed to go over Nap’s apartment to pick up some blankets. On the drunken walk over there, we see a mannequin of some kind lying in the trash and Brian proceeds to kick its head off. We then threw it around like a football for a couple of minutes and then we decided we’re going to try to scare Dave, on Friday night. So we took it with us. We grabbed the blankets, stumbled back to Brian’s.

When we got out of the elevator and stepped into the hallway. It smelled like smoke, which Brian noted and then he tried to unlock the door. After a few seconds of unsuccessfully unlocking it, he looks up and says, “Why are we on the third floor? We’re on the wrong floor!” This is why it smelled like smoke. We get back in the elevator and head up again, this time arriving at and unlocking the correct door.

The last thing I remember this evening, now at 215 am, is Brian blowing up the air mattress, giving me the blankets and me climbing into bed, still in my clothes.

Day 1 – mission accomplished

NYC
Air Travel
Friends
Stupidity

Start spreadin' the news...

“I’m leavin’ on Thurs-day. I’m gonna be a part of it, New York, New York!” That’s right, I am going on a 3.5-day mini vacation to NYC next week for my birthday (Wednesday, in case you’d like to send me a gift, in which case, I prefer cash). I am going to see all of my friends, we are going to have an excellent weekend of drinking, laughing, maybe some gambling in Atlantic City, and I’m sure we’ll have some great conversations as well, which is the norm when we get together. I’ll be sure to try to update over the course of the weekend and post a few pictures as well! I. Am. Excited!

Ok, that’s out of the way, so on to a lighter hearted post.

Why don’t dogs jump out of the window of a moving car? Usually, they can’t get outside fast enough, but get them in the car, open the window and they sit there. I don’t get it.

The law clerk in the office next to me called the Houston Chronicle today to let them know they deleted her favorite word puzzle from the daily paper. Ok, I know many people are into that sort of thing; it helps to stimulate your mind and keeps your mind sharp, but seriously, find a different puzzle to work on and get over it.

When the elevator doors open on the bottom floor, more than likely, people will be exiting, namely, ME. Wait for me to walk out before attempting to get on the elevator. Stand back a few feet to give me room to exit, and then when it looks to be all clear, I assume you’ll know when that occurs, step in. Really, it’s not that hard folks. Also, it seems to me that this is just a common courtesy.

Finally, two weasels are sitting at a bar. One turns to the other and screams, “I slept with your mother!” The bar hushes waiting to hear what is going to happen next. He gets up off his stool and screams again, “Did you hear me? I slept with your mother!” The other weasel calmly turns around to face him and says, “Go home Dad, you’re drunk.”

That’s all I have folks, thank you and good night!

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